Late on Friday, the Senate passed a package clearing five outstanding funding Bills to cover most federal agencies through September, along with a two-week stopgap measure to keep DHS operating while lawmakers continue negotiations over immigration enforcement policy.
The House of Representatives was out of session as the deadline expired and is not scheduled to return until Monday.
President Donald Trump backed the Senate deal and urged swift House action, signalling he wanted to avoid a prolonged shutdown – the second of his second term – after a record-length stoppage last fall disrupted federal services for more than a month.
POLITICAL BACKLASH
The Senate breakthrough came only after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina lifted a procedural block that had stalled the package late on Thursday.
Graham had objected to provisions in the DHS stopgap and to House-passed language repealing an earlier measure that allowed senators to sue the Justice Department if their phone records were seized during past investigations.
Graham agreed to release his hold after Senate leaders committed to holding future votes on legislation he is sponsoring to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with federal deportation operations.
Democrats, meanwhile, have remained united in opposing new DHS funding without changes to immigration enforcement following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Their deaths intensified scrutiny of federal agents’ conduct and hardened opposition to approving money for immigration agencies without new guardrails.